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Obama Fails to Get More Beef into Korea

U.S. beef, trying to get back into South Korea without restrictions, is getting both good news and bad news on the trade front.

While thousands of Koreans protested in the streets of Seoul last year over re-entry of U.S. beef to South Korea with fewer restrictions, beef imported from America has more than doubled in first eight months of 2010. Koreans clearly have not lost their taste for corn-fed Nebraska beef.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is President Obama failed to get the remaining restrictions on U.S. beef exports to Korea removed from a proposed free trade agreement, which now remains unresolved.

In a big embarrassment for the president, the U.S.-Korea trade talks broke down during his current Asian tour and are now unlikely to be resolved until after the president gets home.

U.S. beef has been trying to get back into Korea without restriction on its exports since it was banned from the Asian after the discovery in 2003 of a cow infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or Mad Cow Disease in Washington state.

Prior to the Mad Cow ban, Korea was a $750 million market for U.S. beef.

Other Countries want traceback with documentation as provided by ScoringAg, like Japan: http://www.aaatrace.com . If there is no traceback, or traceability on a changeable spreadsheet other Countries will not take the product.

Great report,
Pretty much everyone in the automobile industry knows that the Koreans will not buy anything that is not made in Korea, that is why 99% of all cars in Korea are the same Korean. Only the US will allow their industries to be knackered by foreign rivalry. Even US or Europe helped the Korean auto industry arrange the consumer network and important logistics, thus saving them at least 15 years. The Koreans do not buy Japanese cars or products, the Japanes do not buy Chines products – it´s a crazy circle.
Jay Banks